February 2008

February 4-22 trip, La Clinica de la Mariposa, Costa Rica in conjunction with the Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA)

The time has come to give a synopsis of the first
trip of 2008. Early February several students and professionals made
the trip to Costa Rica once again for La Clinica de la Mariposa. This
time we were accompanied by four doctors, as usual myself, Thomas Davis
of Florida, then Dr. Bahr of Wisconsin, Brad Finer and Barry
Taylor of Northwestern Health Sciences University (NWHSU) in Minnesota.
We had two massage therapists Debbie Grote and Melody Mousavi from
Minnesota. Two senior chiropractic interns came from NWHSU, Danielle
Trego and Melissa Shera while three senior students joined us from the
UK attending Anglo European Chiropractic College, Bournemouth, England,
Cora Pellisier, James Birdseye and Dio Maxut. We saw many new patients
and many returning ones in keeping with our policy of providing and
promoting on-going care.

This
trip we surpassed the 3000 total of patient files on hand in secure
storage. We visited the communities of Alajuela, San Ramon and Cartago.
We saw the usual mix of patients with presenting symptoms. We took
particular pleasure in seeing some of the long-term effects of our work
with a young 5-year-old patient who presented to us three years ago
with the effects of cerebral palsy, present from birth. By this time
she is a lovely five year old who is able to talk and move on her own
to a limited extent. When we first saw her she could not sit up
unassisted. After her initial adjustment she was able to sit
unassisted. She now is learning to walk helped to a great measure by a
caring and loving mother who is very supportive. We made arrangements
for her to obtain a walker to improve her mobility.

As
always we stayed in the apartments in Santa Lucia and traveled over the
Central Valley seeing the sights. Also as always there was a great
anxiety over getting to the beach. This was accomplished, as were other
day-trips for seeing the sights of Costa Rica. The second week group
were able to see a home of community residents in San Ramon in the
adjacent housing. The public busses, our usual mode of transport, were
as always too small for big bodies with long legs. We suffered. We also
had use of a very nice chartered bus for our work trips, much improved
over the previous models. We felt safer and more comfortable. With all
our equipment and staff, we completely filled the bus.

We
hope that these reports fill the information void in executive summary
form and that they will provide an impetus for you to join us in this
work. You can join by physically becoming a treating doctor or other
professional or with monetary support to Santé, Inc our
non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation that supports La Clinica. We are
thankful for all who have supported this effort through United Way
giving, personal donations, Northwestern Health Sciences University
through monetary support and release time for faculty, and to my
daughter Rebecca who is a Board member and raised over $1000 through
running the Twin Cities Marathon cheered on by her family. We
contribute monetarily to cover the cost of our translators,
transportation and food at the worksite.

We
operate under the draft World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC)
standards for such trips. We try to introduce high standards into this
work as we prepare a health history, perform an exam and keep notes on
our treatment of each patient. Come join us in one way or another as we
provide chiropractic and other related health care to the underserved
in Costa Rica. Thanks to all who have and continue to support us in
this important and worthwhile work.

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